Cercopithecoid

In East Africa the first evidence of cercopithecoid diversity appeared in the Pliocene at sites such as Lothagam, East Turkana, and Laetoli where papionins were the dominant cercopithecoids.

Concerning systematics, while extinct monkeys from the early and middle Miocene of Africa are widely accepted as true cercopithecoids, there remains some discussion as to their precise phylogenetic position.

The latest major anthropoid radiation, and in some ways the most successful, was that of the Old World monkeys, the Cercopithecoidea. Cercopithecoids appear to have originated from early African catarrhines during the late Oligocene gap in the Old World fossil record.